


Monster in my Blood

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Apologizes, Demon Blood, Demon Blood Addiction, Detox, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Sam On Demon Blood, Sam is not a monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 17:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Famine, Sam's demon blood cravings are back full force, and when a demon forces her blood into his mouth he can't stop himself from drinking. After, his attempts to get to Bobby's to be safely locked down are thwarted when he finds himself in a hospital instead, and realizes that maybe he doesn't have to be tied down and locked away. Maybe he isn't a monster.</p><p>Fix-it for the way Dean handled the demon-blood detox, both times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster in my Blood

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I do not make money from this.**
> 
> **Secondary disclaimer: I know very little about hospital practices concerning detoxing patients, and tried to sidestep the issue here. I hope I didn't mess anything up too badly. Also, views on Sam's guilt are his own, not mine. He's harder on himself than I am on him.**
> 
> **Comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Even if you didn't finish reading the piece, I'd like to know what you did and/or didn't like.**
> 
> **This was written for the Story a Day prompt "shame"**

                Later, Sam would see it as an obviously terrible idea to split up and take two separate hunts. Later, he and Dean both would lament their shared idiocy and Bobby would point it out several times to both of them.

                They always knew hindsight was 20-20.

                It had been a simple plan: There were two salt-and-burns in neighbouring towns, and since people were dying it made the most sense for them to take a hunt apiece. Hunting alone was never the best idea, but Dean had hunted solo before, and Sam figured he’d probably be able to manage it too.

                That had been a great plan, right up until Sam’s salt-and-burn had turned out to be a demon.

                “Come on,” the possessed woman was telling him, “we both know you want it.”

                Sam stared at the blood dripping from the cut she’d made on her own arm. He couldn’t deny that he felt a pull towards it – his miraculously cured addiction had come back full force after his run-in with Famine – but he was more than capable of handling it.

                He wanted to ask her why she was doing this – offering him blood instead of trying to kill him – but he settled on an exorcism instead. “Exorciamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” he began.

                She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way, huh?”

                She leapt at him, interrupting the exorcism. He dodged out of her way, but was surprised by another demon that had apparently just entered through the back door of the abandoned building. He was screwed. _One_ demon, he could have handled. Even two or more, if he was prepared for them and had Ruby’s knife, but Dean had the knife and Sam had only been expecting one.

                Pinned down now, he saw the female-vesseled demon approach him, arm still bleeding. He forced words into his mouth in an attempt to stall her.

                “Why are you doing this, anyway?” he finally asked. “I thought you guys were more into just killing people.”

                She smirked at him, and for a moment looked so much like Ruby that he wanted to hit something. “But you’re not just anyone, are you Sam? You’re our father’s favourite.”

                She was kneeling beside him now, eyes flashing black. “If our blood got you to start the Apocalypse, maybe it’ll also get you to finish it.”

                _So, stupid demons then,_ Sam decided. _Thankfully._ As if it were just the blood that had brought him to that point – he couldn’t deny that the blood had been a part of it, and still felt a pang of guilt for even letting Ruby talk him into it, but he knew that wasn’t an excuse. Blood or not, it was his desire for revenge that drove him, and his willingness to accept Ruby and her advice. The darkness and lingering evil of demonic blood only cemented what he already knew – he was a monster.

                He hoped with everything he had that the guilt he felt from those mistakes would prevent him from repeating them.

                In another moment his thoughts were interrupted by the scent and taste of the demon’s blood. He told himself to stop, told himself to _spit it out_ , to fight it, but he couldn’t. This was different from the other time, before Famine. He _craved_ it again, and it was all he could do to simply pace himself as he drew out her blood.

                He felt the power rushing into him, full of promise and potential and destiny, and was taken over by a strange mixture of ecstasy and nausea. He found himself reliving the thrill that had brought him so far into Ruby’s control, and the shame and crushing guilt of what that had done.

                Finally, the arm pulled away, and Sam could at least pretend he was capable of thought rather than simple emotion.

                His first thought was to kill the demons.

                Once they were gone, bodies dropped to the ground with a bit of concentration and a headache he knew would be the least of his problems in a few hours, he slumped back on the ground and tried to breathe.

                He cursed at himself softly under his breath, then turned over and vomited. He had to get the blood out as much as possible before it did anything to him, tainted him more than he was already tainted.

                Five minutes later he staggered out of the building, still muttering to himself under his breath.

                “Should have done it, should have spat it in her face, but couldn’t because I’m weak, I’m weak and evil and oh god why can’t I be good I want to be I swear please, just…”

                He forced himself to take a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to force himself to concentrate. Something was supposed to happen next. What happened next?

                He remembered the last times, Dean forcing him into the panic room and tying him down so he could hallucinate and spasm and nobody else would have to deal with it.

                It was a good plan. He had to get to Bobby’s.

                That settled, he started towards the car he’d (regretfully) stolen, only to stop short next to it.

                Was he supposed to be driving? He didn’t think he should be driving. People weren’t supposed to drive when they were on drugs and stuff, right? He knew the thrum of power from the blood had subsided by now, so he didn’t think he was technically high…

                He spent a minute staring into emptiness and trying to stop the pounding in his head before he pulled his thoughts back together. Not high. Right.

                Not high, but probably not fit for driving, either, by the looks of it. Maybe people going through detox shouldn’t drive either.

                _Better hitch a ride to Bobby’s, then_ , he decided after a good ten seconds.

                He’d gotten about a mile down the road before he saw any cars, and two and a half miles before anyone stopped for him.

By then, the detox had gotten worse (it was faster this time, and he had to assume it was because he’d actually puked up the blood rather than just waiting it out). He was shivering and sweating and the world had stopped looking the right way. He thought he saw shadows in the corners – the early signs of hallucinations – and had to focus intently on his footsteps.

He was so busy focusing on each foot he placed in front of the next that he almost didn’t hear the woman calling to him from her car.

“Hey, do you need help? Are you okay?”

He realized after a startled twitch that she was talking to him, and turned to respond.

“Yes, yeah,” he said. “I… I need to get to Sioux Falls.”

“That’s a pretty long drive from here,” she said. “I can take you part of the way, though.”

He nodded and approached the car, but she stopped him before he got in. She got out of the seat, placed her hands on his shoulders, and examined his face carefully.

“You don’t look well,” she told him. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

He shook his head. He didn’t need a hospital. He needed to be locked down and subdued because he was wrong and demons were wrong and he had demons in him.

She looked dubious, but got back in the car and let him in the other side without complaint.

She watched him carefully as they drove, and only got five minutes into the trip before she sighed and turned the car around.

“Sorry, sir, but I’m taking you to the hospital. I can’t drop you off anywhere else in good conscience.”

He nodded, wanting to protest but figuring there was no point. He thought the hallucinations would start soon – he was already seeing black lines shifting around under his skin, but he didn’t think the woman did. If she saw them too, he thought she’d be freaking out a bit more.

They got to the hospital fairly quickly, and the woman walked with him into the building – partially, he thought, to ensure that he actually got help.

Someone approached them immediately and started asking him about the situation. He told her what he could – “drug detox –something new, you won’t know it – I just need to get back, I’ll be fine.”

“Sir, are you refusing treatment?”

Sam blinked. He was allowed to refuse? He had a choice? “Yes,” he told her. “I have to.” He had to get to Bobby’s get tied down.

“Tied down?” The woman’s voice was alarmed now, and it occurred to Sam that he may have inadvertently said that last part out loud.

It was as if something broke and he found himself talking more to her than he had ever intended to. He noticed dimly as he spoke that the woman who had first brought him here had left, apparently satisfied now that he was talking to a doctor.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he was saying, “She gave it to me and I could taste it and I should have spat it out but I didn’t and now I need to be tied and locked away down before I mess anything else up. The evil can’t get to anyone else, I can’t let it, but it’s gotten to me and I’m tainted and I don’t want to hurt anything but I’ve already broken the world.”

The woman was watching him carefully, her eyes sympathetic.

“Sir, I don’t know your story,” she told him, voice kind but firm, “but I can tell you that if you are this concerned about hurting people, you are not an evil man.” She paused, then added in a serious tone. “And being ‘tied down and locked away’ is not a safe or wise procedure for dealing with detoxification symptoms.”

Sam stared at her, processing the words. Of course he needed to be locked down. It was what Dean had done, and Dean hadn’t been drinking demon blood so he knew better. Sam was a monster. Everyone thought so – other hunters had tried to kill him, and hunters only killed monsters.

“But I’m a monster,” he found himself saying, “And they locked me up before.” He realized how that might sound and rushed to reassure the woman. “For the best, you know. Dean was just trying to help everyone.”

“Sir, I strongly recommend that you let us treat you,” the woman said. “We will take all necessary precautions to ensure that you don’t hurt anyone, but I strongly believe that treatment here would be the best option for everyone involved.”

Sam was about to protest again, tell her that he really needed to get to Bobby’s – but then the hallucinations started.

He watched with fascination as Dean approached him, saying, “Hey Sammy, see you’ve gone and let the demons in again huh? Think I’ll just take you back this time? You know I only barely let you back in the game. What makes you think I’ll just tolerate another display of weakness?”

“It’s not like that,” Sam pleaded. “Please, Dean, please just let me come back. I promise I’ll try to be better.”

Dean scoffed, but whatever he had been about to say was cut off by the woman’s sharp, “Sir?” cutting through the fog of hallucination.

Sam nodded, reluctant but not seeing a better option. He was probably less likely to hurt people in a hospital than out on the road, since here he couldn’t just go hunting demons for more blood.

“Okay,” he said. “Treat me.”

A day and a half later, Sam was fairly confident that he was done detoxing, although the hospital wanted him to stay longer for a psych evaluation. They had wanted to tell him about programs to deal with addiction, but he had assured them that someone else had literally forced the drug into his mouth, and that as long as that didn’t happen again he would be fine.

                The nurses who had been treating him hadn’t tied him down at all, although when his telekinesis started up they had been pretty freaked out. Fortunately, he had a vague recollection of someone coming in and talking to him in a soothing voice, telling him in soft words that everything would be okay, he could calm down.

                To his surprise, the telekinesis had died down to a manageable level – effectively a strong breeze. He supposed he was lucky that the nurse in question had been a believer in psychic abilities.

                The most astonishing thing of all, though, was that none of them had treated him like a monster, like he was something dangerous that had to be controlled.

                And all of them were _okay_. He hadn’t hurt anybody – not like he thought he would, given the apparent need for lock and key the last two times.

                He didn’t know what to make of it, really.

                What he _did_ know was that he had to call Dean. He didn’t want to tell him what had happened, but the lingering shame and guilt from the ordeal forced him to confess the truth. Lying, after all, was part of their problem in the first place.

                “Dean?” he said as soon as the phone was picked up.

                “Yeah, Sammy?” Dean asked. “You done with the hunt? This one got held up a bit with the research, but I got the bones burned. I should be there in a few hours.”

                “Okay,” Sam said, then took a deep breath. “It was demons here. They, uh, wanted to convince me to let Lucifer in. They thought that if they….” He trailed off.

                Dean seemed to get the message anyway, swearing loudly. “Sam, you okay? No way you got to Bobby’s in time.”

                “Yeah,” Sam said, relieved that Dean’s voice carried worry, but not hatred. “There was a hospital here, actually. I’m good now.”

                “A _hospital?_ ” Dean asked incredulously. “No way they could deal with that.”

                “I’m still here, and nobody’s hurt except the demons, so apparently they could,” Sam said dryly. “All it took was some basic medical care and a nurse who was willing to talk me down from the telekinesis.”

                Dean was silent for a long moment. “Talk you down?”

                “Yeah,” Sam said. “Apparently talking helps me not fling things across the room so much. They didn’t even have to tie me down. Who knew?”

                Dean let out a long breath, and Sam could practically see him rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, man,” he said, startling Sam.

                “For what?” he asked.

                “For being a jerk the last time you were detoxing,” Dean said. “The first time I was angry, and bitter, and maybe not in my right mind. What you did, what you chose – it hurt me, and I wanted to hurt you back. But after Famine? I don’t know, man, I guess assumed, you know…”

                “I know,” Sam said. “I thought the same. Told them I had to be tied down and locked away, but I guess they disagreed. We didn’t know, Dean. I thought it was best too – lock me away so the evil can’t spread and hurt anyone else.”

                “I didn’t-” Dean started, then stopped and tried again. “I don’t know, Sammy. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll be there in a few hours, okay? Think you can hold out until then?”

                “Yeah,” Sam said, “I’ll be fine.”

                Sam was in shock. Dean had apologized to _him_? After what had just happened? _Sam_ was the one who’d swallowed the demon blood. _Sam_ was the one who’d let himself get addicted to it in the first place. _Sam_ was the one who’d started the Apocalypse.

                But he remembered something the nurse had said to him last night, while he was detoxing and raving about the Apocalypse – _“It’s okay, I believe you, you didn’t mean to do it. It’s okay, Sam. You were trying to help, right? Trying to stop it? It’s not your responsibility to know everything. You can’t make the right choice without knowing what the options are.”_

                He knew that she’d been under the impression that his ravings were from detox-induced hallucinations, but he also knew that she’d meant every word.

                And, remembering it, he didn’t feel quite as much like a monster.


End file.
